Two owners with the same $2.8 million service business run the same small business tax deadlines calendar in completely different ways. One closes the books when a filing forces it. The other closes by the 15th of every month and treats each deadline as a printout. Same revenue, same entity type, same CPA. One of them pays penalties most years. The other has not paid one since 2019.
That is the real comparison worth making, and it is the one nobody puts in a deadline article. Dates are public information — the IRS publishes them, the Texas Comptroller publishes them. What separates a clean year from an expensive one is which system you use to arrive at each date. So let's put the two systems head to head, then walk the actual calendar month by month with the closing work each date depends on.
What tax deadlines does a small business actually have?
A calendar-year Texas small business with employees owes roughly fifteen recurring filings a year: four Form 941 payroll returns, four Texas Workforce Commission wage reports, twelve or four Texas sales tax returns depending on filing frequency, one Form 940, one annual W-2 and 1099 run, one Texas Franchise Tax report, one entity income tax return, and four estimated tax payments. Federal payroll deposits sit on top of that on a monthly or semiweekly schedule. There is no Texas state income tax return, which is why the Texas calendar is shorter than a California one but not simpler — the franchise report and the sales tax cadence do the work instead.
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Head to head: deadline-triggered close vs. close-first calendar
Both approaches produce filed returns. They do not produce the same numbers, the same penalties, or the same amount of usable information.
| Dimension | Deadline-triggered close | Close-first calendar |
|---|---|---|
| When the books get touched | February and March, when the CPA emails | By the 15th, every month, for the prior month |
| Sales tax accuracy | Estimated from bank deposits; taxable vs. exempt sorted later | Taxable sales tagged at the invoice, reconciled before the 20th |
| S-corp owner compensation | Discovered in March, after the W-2 deadline has passed | Set in Q1, trued up in Q4 while payroll can still fix it |
| Estimated tax payments | Prior-year safe harbor, or skipped | Based on actual year-to-date profit at each quarter close |
| Contractor 1099s | W-9 chase in late January | W-9 collected before the first payment clears |
| Extension use | Nearly every year, by necessity | Occasionally, by choice |
| Typical penalty exposure | Deposit penalties, late 1099 penalties, per-owner late filing penalties | Near zero |
| What the owner can answer in June | "I'll have to check with my bookkeeper" | Gross margin, cash position, and estimated tax owed |
The deadline-triggered approach is not lazy. It is what happens when a growing business has no monthly rhythm, so compliance becomes the only forcing function. The problem is that tax deadlines are lagging indicators. By the time a date arrives, the decisions that determine the number are months old. A March filing deadline cannot fix a compensation decision that needed to happen in November.
The calendar, month by month, with the closing work behind each date
Dates below reflect the current cycle; when a due date lands on a weekend or federal holiday it shifts to the next business day, which is why several 2026 dates read a day or two later than the rule states.
January — the heaviest month you have
- Jan 15: Q4 estimated tax payment for the prior year (Form 1040-ES for pass-through owners, 1120-W mechanics for C-corps).
- Jan 20: Texas sales tax — December monthly, Q4 quarterly, and the annual return for low-volume filers all land here.
- Jan 31 (Feb 2 in 2026): Form 941 for Q4, Form 940 FUTA for the year, TWC quarterly wage report, and W-2s to employees and the Social Security Administration.
- Jan 31 (Feb 2 in 2026): 1099-NEC to recipients and to the IRS. Unlike most information returns, the recipient copy and the government copy share one date.
Books that must be closed first: the full prior year, at least at the payroll and vendor level. You cannot issue accurate 1099s from an unreconciled vendor ledger, and you cannot file a Q4 941 that ties to the W-2 run if December payroll was booked as a lump withdrawal. If December is not reconciled by January 10, you are guessing. Our small business tax preparation checklist covers the document side of this month in detail.
One rule change matters here. For payments made during 2026 and reported in January 2027, the 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC threshold rises from $600 to $2,000 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Payments made in 2025 still used the $600 floor. That means your 2026 vendor list and your 2025 vendor list will not be built the same way — do not let a bookkeeper apply last year's rule out of habit. The 1099 filing deadline mechanics are worth reading before the January crunch.
February and March — entity returns and the S-corp reckoning
- Feb 20 / Mar 20: Texas sales tax, monthly filers.
- Mar 2 (paper) / Mar 31 (e-file): Form 1099-MISC to the IRS. Note that any business filing 10 or more information returns in aggregate must e-file — the old 250-return paper allowance is gone.
- Mar 16, 2026: Form 1065 (partnerships) and Form 1120-S (S-corps). The statutory date is the 15th day of the third month; March 15, 2026 falls on a Sunday.
March is where the deadline-triggered approach gets expensive, and rarely for the reason owners expect. The penalty is not usually about the return being late. It is that the S-corp return reveals a reasonable compensation problem that could only have been fixed with a W-2 issued before December 31. If you took $180,000 in distributions and ran $40,000 through payroll, March is when you learn it, and March is too late. That decision belongs in the fall — the owner compensation decision tree walks through how to set it and when to revisit it.
April — the federal cluster
- Apr 15, 2026: Form 1040 with Schedule C for sole proprietors and single-member LLCs, Form 1120 for calendar-year C-corps, and the Q1 estimated payment for the current year.
- Apr 20: Texas sales tax — March monthly and Q1 quarterly.
- Apr 30: Form 941 for Q1 and the TWC wage report for Q1.
April 15 is also the date most owners misunderstand. An extension extends filing, never paying. File Form 4868 or 7004 and the return moves to October 15 or September 15; the tax was still due in April, and failure-to-pay interest starts accruing that day. The IRS is explicit about this on its employment tax due dates page and throughout its filing guidance.
May — the Texas date nobody has on their phone
- May 15: Texas Franchise Tax report.
- May 20: Texas sales tax, April monthly.
This is the single most-missed filing for Texas LLCs, because there is no income tax return to remind you the state exists. Two things changed recently and both cause confusion. First, entities below the no-tax-due revenue threshold ($2.47 million for 2024 and 2025 reports, adjusted for inflation every two years) no longer file a No Tax Due Report — but they still must file the Public Information Report or Ownership Information Report. "I owe nothing" is not the same as "I file nothing." Second, the rate that applies to you depends on your NAICS classification: 0.375% for retail and wholesale, 0.75% for everyone else, and 0.331% on the EZ computation. Confirm your current threshold and rate on the Texas Comptroller's franchise tax pages before you assume last year's treatment carries forward.
Miss May 15 entirely for long enough and the state can forfeit your right to transact business in Texas — which is a much worse outcome than a penalty, because it surfaces at the worst possible moment: during a bank loan closing or a sale.
June through September — the quiet quarters that decide March
- Jun 15: Q2 estimated tax payment.
- Jul 20 / Jul 31: Texas sales tax Q2; Form 941 and TWC wage report for Q2.
- Sep 15: Q3 estimated tax payment, and the extended deadline for Forms 1065 and 1120-S.
Nothing here is hard. Everything here is where the close-first approach earns its keep. By June you know whether your effective tax rate assumption is holding. By September you know whether owner compensation needs a fourth-quarter adjustment and whether you should be funding a retirement plan. A business that closes monthly can answer those questions from a report; a business that closes annually cannot ask them at all. If your books are far enough behind that June feels theoretical, start with a run-today catch-up audit rather than waiting for the next deadline to force it.
October through December — the last window where anything is fixable
- Oct 15: Extended Form 1040 and Form 1120 deadline.
- Oct 20 / Oct 31: Texas sales tax Q3; Form 941 and TWC wage report for Q3.
- Dec 31: Everything that has to happen inside the tax year — final owner payroll, retirement plan contributions requiring a funded account, fixed asset purchases placed in service, bonus runs.
December 31 is not a filing deadline, which is exactly why it gets ignored. It is the last date on which the numbers you will file in March can still be changed. Treat it as the most important line on the calendar.
The deposit schedule running underneath all of it
Payroll deposits are not annual events and they carry the sharpest penalties. Your schedule is set by a lookback period, not by preference: monthly depositors remit by the 15th of the following month, semiweekly depositors remit Wednesday or Friday depending on payday, and any business accumulating $100,000 or more in liability must deposit by the next business day. The mechanics live in IRS Publication 15, and the practical side is covered in our walkthrough of how payroll actually works and the two-tool stack to run it.
The penalty is tiered by how late you are, not flat: 2% at 1–5 days, 5% at 6–15 days, 10% at 16 or more days, and 15% once an IRS notice has sat unanswered for 10 days. A single missed deposit on a $30,000 payroll liability is a four-figure mistake for a scheduling error.
What a slipped date actually costs
- Late entity return (1065 or 1120-S): assessed per owner per month — roughly $245 per partner or shareholder per month for up to 12 months, indexed annually. A four-partner firm three months late is looking at a mid-four-figure penalty on a return that owed no tax.
- Late income tax return with a balance: 5% of unpaid tax per month up to 25%, plus 0.5% per month failure-to-pay, plus interest.
- Late or wrong 1099s: tiered by lateness — roughly $60 if corrected within 30 days, $130 by August 1, $330 after, and $680 per return for intentional disregard, with no cap in that last tier.
- Late Texas franchise report: a $50 late filing penalty plus 5% of tax due, rising to 10% after 30 days, and eventual forfeiture of the entity's right to transact business.
- Late sales tax: you forfeit the 0.5% timely-filing discount and the 1.25% prepayment discount, then add a $50 penalty and 5% of tax due.
Notice the pattern: almost none of these are proportional to how much tax you owed. They are proportional to how many owners, how many contractors, and how many days. That is why compliance is an operations problem, not a tax problem.
The verdict: pick the close-first calendar when any of these are true
Pick the close-first calendar when you have employees, more than one owner, an S-corp election, taxable sales in Texas, more than a handful of 1099 contractors, or any intention of borrowing or selling in the next three years. Each of those adds a filing whose accuracy depends on a month you already closed. At that point, a monthly close is cheaper than the penalties it prevents, and it happens to hand you the reporting you need to run the business — see which financial reports to read and when.
The deadline-triggered approach is defensible when you are a single-owner Schedule C business with no employees, no taxable sales, and fewer than three contractors. Your calendar is four estimated payments, one 1040, and one franchise report. Closing quarterly instead of monthly is a reasonable trade.
It stops being defensible the moment you hire. Payroll converts your calendar from six dates to fifteen and introduces the only penalties that compound weekly. Most owners cross that line without noticing, and find out in the following February.
Print the month-by-month list above, put every date in the same calendar your team already uses, and add one recurring reminder that is not a filing at all: close last month by the 15th. Do that and every date on this page becomes a printout instead of a project. At Turnkey CFO we build client calendars in exactly that order — close date first, filing dates hung off it — because the filings were never the hard part.
Tax and entity rules turn on facts specific to your business. Use this calendar to know what is coming and what has to be closed first; talk to your CPA or attorney before acting on any position it raises.
Frequently asked questions
Does a Texas LLC have to file anything if it made no money?
Yes. The Texas Franchise Tax report is due May 15 regardless of profit. Entities below the no-tax-due revenue threshold skip the tax calculation but still file the Public Information Report or Ownership Information Report, and a federal return is generally required. Zero revenue does not mean zero filings.
If I file an extension, do I still have to pay in April?
Yes. Form 4868 and Form 7004 extend the filing date, not the payment date. Tax owed is due on the original deadline, and failure-to-pay interest starts accruing that day even with a valid extension on file.
Do I still send 1099s for every contractor I paid $600?
For payments made in 2025 and earlier, yes. For payments made during 2026 and reported in January 2027, the threshold rises to $2,000 and is indexed afterward. Collect a W-9 from every contractor regardless of amount — the threshold governs reporting, not documentation.
Do I still have to file a BOI report with FinCEN?
Under the March 2025 interim final rule, domestic companies are exempt from beneficial ownership information reporting. A checklist that still lists BOI as an annual item for a Texas LLC predates that change. Confirm current status with your attorney, since this area has shifted more than once.
How far behind can my books be before deadlines become a real problem?
One month behind is manageable. Two months and estimated payments become guesses. A full quarter behind and you cannot file an accurate sales tax return or Form 941 without reconstruction. The practical test: if you cannot produce last month's profit and loss statement on request, your next deadline is already at risk.